I am writing to express concerns about the proposed Oak Grove Bicycle Project and urge you to pause before rushing through a plan that could potentially make our streets less safe for riders, pedestrians, and motorists.

I support making our city more bicycle friendly, but retro-fitting our streets, in some cases, may have the *unintended* consequence of creating more traffic issues which in turn could jeopardize the safety of riders. I have been a Nativity School parent since kindergarten, and my son is now in sixth grade, so I am very familiar with the traffic patterns and issues that exist during peak hours of drop-off and pick-up around Nativity School, the M-A parking problem along Oak Grove, etc. We live in the Linfield Oaks neighborhood and travel these routes daily--sometimes by car, sometimes by bike or walking. I support measures the city has taken over the years to improve pedestrian/motorist safety along these routes, such as the change to the light at the Ravenswood/Laurel intersection. I also appreciate the willingness of the city to recognize when something doesn't work, e.g. removing the blocked right-hand turn off of Ravenswood onto Alma. This is an excellent example of a change that was implemented to promote greater safety, but in practice actually made that particular intersection less safe.

My concern about the Oak Grove Bicycle Project is that in an attempt to make Oak Grove more bike-friendly (something I can certainly get behind in theory), a situation is likely to be created that exacerbates existing problems along an already tricky stretch of road. I urge the city to first take measures to improve traffic flow along the Oak Grove corridor: by implementing a traffic light adjustment at the Laurel/Oak Grove intersection (an unsafe intersection just as Laurel/Ravenswood used to be before adding the left-turn signal), by adding better signage and road markings, and by considering adding lighted crosswalks along Oak Grove BEFORE experimenting with the proposed bikelane plan which does not seem to appreciate the traffic hornet's nest it would likely create. If side neighborhoods become de facto parking lots, I would expect to see more pedestrians and students darting across Oak Grove. I also worry about the Entry/Exit of cars from Nativity school intersecting with a bike lane. Will the city provide a safety patrol person in the mornings to monitor this "safe" bike lane? Besides street markings, what actually makes this a safer route? Is it possible you could actually be creating a less safe route by implementing a plan that puts more pressure on an already tenuous traffic/parking situation?

Please work to solve existing traffic/parking issues on Oak Grove FIRST. Only when this has been resolved, can bike lanes be implemented that are truly safe.